Estate Living Magazine Smart Moves - Issue 38 February 2019 | Page 38

C O M M U N I T Y
L I V I N G
LIFT YOUR LANDSCAPE
ART THAT
MOVES
WITH
If the purpose of art is to help us see the world in new
and interesting ways, what’s the point of a sculpture
that stands still? Especially if it’s an investment piece
that’s going to be the focal point in your garden.
The problem with sculptures in the landscape, says Muizenberg-
based artist Etienne de Kock, is that they tend to fade into
insignificance.
‘When you have a bronze in a public space, a man sitting on a horse,
say, or a statesman on a throne, it becomes invisible in a way because
it’s not doing anything. ‘By the third time you’ve walked past it, you
don’t notice it any more.’
His solution? Make kinetic art – art that moves.
It’s a relatively new idea that stems from Impressionists like Monet,
Manet, and Degas, who experimented with movement in their
painting in the late 19th century. The first sculptures that actually
moved, though, were made by the Russian artists Vladimir Tatlin and
Alexander Rodchenko, in the early 20th century, and the American
Alexander Calder, in the late 1930s.
But in terms of art that moved, and that was specifically designed
to inhabit outdoor spaces like public parks and private gardens,
the godfather of the form was undoubtedly the American George
Rickey (1907–2002), who said, ‘I’m convinced that, in the end, art is
not for the artist but for their fellow man.’
Rickey incorporated his love of engineering into his works, whose
geometric components respond to the slightest currents of air
– moving either randomly or in repetitive patterns. (Do yourself a
favour and check out ‘Four Open Rectangles Diagonal Jointed
Gyratory V’ on YouTube: bit.ly/GeoRickey.)
In South Africa, of course, we’re used to seeing movement in our
landscapes because we’ve always had (or it seems we’ve always had)
windmills: from the familiar Mostert’s Mill (1796), a quietly elegant
exclamation mark alongside Cape Town’s frenetic M3 motorway, or
the iconic metal wind pumps that’ve been turning slowly, clanking,
and splashing water from deep inside the earth into the cracked and
ageing, circular concrete dams of the country’s farms since the mid-
1800s, to the minimalist, seagull-white elegance of those enormous
wind turbines on the coast, serenely generating megawatt after
megawatt of electricity.
So you’d think that locating South African artists whose work is
designed for gardens and public open spaces would be (if you’ll
pardon the expression) a walk in the park. Mass-produced,
supermarket-ready whirligigs in the shops and
online you’ll find by the hundreds – but work
that’s been carefully thought through,
and that is unique, and uniquely South
African? Those pieces are rare indeed.
Fortunately, though, there’s Etienne
de Kock, and the artist-engineer,
Mark O’Donovan.
Etienne de Kock
Although they’re of a similar age,
Etienne (etiennedekock.co.za) is the
‘younger’ of the two, having spent 15 years
working on large-scale corporate sculptures